Page: 154

On an article by Heilmann. "The Essence of the Dispute"
"Die Glocke," 1916, No. 20 (August 12, 1916)
Ernst Heilmann: "The Essence of the Dispute" (pp. 770–786).
The aim—to set forth "the basic ideas of the three disputing groups" (p. 770):...
"The majority, the practical cooperation [group], and the internationalists (the Liebknecht group)" (p. 771)...
1—want "German victory"
2—"the ending of the war in a draw"
3—"the defeat of Germany" (p. 771)...
"The first two tendencies stand on the ground of national defense, although the practical cooperation group very assiduously concerns itself with seeing that they do not exceed the bounds of pure defense; the adherents of the 'Third International,' however, reject the principle of 'national defense' as a confusing phrase" (p. 771).
"The Liebknecht group has remained perfectly true to itself.... This tendency has now united itself into a new party with the Spartacist program. Following its theoretical leader, the Russian Lenin, it wishes to impose upon all Social Democratic parties, as their international duty, the obligation unconditionally to strive for the defeat of their own country by all means: through illegal leaflets, secret organizations, mass strikes, and uprisings" (p. 771)...
"In Russia the adherents of this tendency themselves honestly and without hesitation openly call themselves 'defeatists'" (p. 772).

*NB*
*NB*
*NB*
ha-ha!

"The Spartacist propaganda, which teaches that enemy invasion is by no means the worst of all evils, but on the contrary might perhaps lead to the conquest of freedom, may have relatively the most adherents among Russian emigrant theoreticians in Switzerland—practically it can be of significance only for Germany and is therefore propaganda for German defeat" (p. 772)—

"The working association, or Zimmerwald Right, whose theoretician is Kautsky and whose political leaders are Haase and Ledebour, wishes not only to conclude from the facts that this war must end without victor and vanquished, but also desires this very outcome of the great struggle" (p. 772).

"Criticism of this halfway position is extraordinarily easy and cheap. The assertion that Germany's defensive task has been solved is so manifestly false in fact that one can only expose oneself to ridicule among sensible people with such a claim" (p. 773)...

"It (the majority) works towards as rapid a peace as possible, which, however, can only be brought about by the present governments" (p. 778).

"We must fundamentally bury the idea of catastrophe and revolution, once and for all, as a means for building the socialist order of society, not from some particular date onward, but on principle. **To be a socialist means in principle to be an anti-revolutionary** (author's emphasis); the opposite view is merely a legacy of the bourgeoisie's struggle for liberation, from which we have spiritually by no means completely freed ourselves" (p. 780)...

p. 782: examples (½ page of names) of victims—counts and generals (their sons [are] officers, etc.) in the war: the argument "that before the face of the enemy we were all equal" (p. 783) (!!!!)

"The crisis of August 4th policy is, therefore, in the final analysis nothing other than the renewal of the old struggle between catastrophe theory and the doctrine of development, a struggle which now, with the victory of evolutionary views, moves toward its conclusion. Therefore we see, aside from a dozen deserters on both sides, the same old battle lines standing opposed to one another—reformists and revolutionaries, or if you will, revisionists and radicals—and hear the old slogans" (p. 784)...

"Despite a hundredfold condemnation, the evolutionary-historical perspective has increasingly asserted itself in the party, and it will triumph even if after the war the discontent of severely suffering peoples leads here and there to revolutionary outbursts. Violent or even bloody episodes may retard or accelerate development, but cannot change its fundamental features" (pp. 785–786).

here lies the crux in the first half of this phrase

"In the growing number of those who do not earn their livelihood through private economic activity or do not receive salary and wages from private hands, socialism is increasingly being realized day by day. The worker in a state enterprise, in a municipal enterprise, and in a cooperative enterprise is as much socialized as the sick fund doctor or the trade union employee" (p. 784).

*NB*
*II*
pearl

LIEBKNECHT TO MARX
(LETTER TO W. LIEBKNECHT FROM 1878)

W. Liebknecht: "On the Oriental Question, or Shall Europe Become Cossackified? An Admonition to the German People." 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1878, pp. 57 and 59.

Cited in "Sozialistische Monatshefte," 1916, p. 1095 (No. 21, October 19, 1916), in an article by Schippel, noting that two letters from a certain "friend," apparently Marx, are appended to this Liebknecht pamphlet. (These appendices are not present in the first edition of Liebknecht's pamphlet.)

Here is what Marx wrote at that time:

"The English working class had been gradually, through the period of corruption since 1818, more and more deeply **demoralized**, and finally reached the point where it formed only the **tail of the great Liberal party**, that is, of its masters, the capitalists. Its direction had wholly passed into the hands of **venal Trade Union leaders and petty-craft agitators**. These fellows screamed and howled for the greater glory of the people-liberating Tsar, behind Gladstone, Bright, Mundella, Morley, the manufacturer rabble, etc., while they did not lift a finger for their own people in South Wales **condemned to starvation by the mine owners**

(1848–1878)
Marx on the English workers in 1878